Protective masks have been used for sometime in both civilian and military applications. These protective masks are designed to protect the wearer from nuclear, biological, chemical agents, fumes, aerosols, gases and airborne contaminants. Hence, it is extremely important that the mask be properly tested to ensure that it will protect the wearer from these life-threatening agents.
It is often advantageous to test a protective mask without the protective mask being worn by an individual. Therefore, previously known mask testers have employed test heads about which a protective mask is mounted for testing. The disadvantages inherent in previously known test heads can have dramatic and adverse impacts on the mask testing process as explained below.
Previously known test heads used to test protective masks have been purposely designed to replicate the form of the corresponding region of the human head and neck. For example, test heads for face seal type protective masks take on the form of a human face while test heads for neck seal type protective masks replicate the human head and neck. However, previously known test heads have been limited in that such test heads cannot accommodate a variety of different type or size of protective masks. Rather, when prior test heads will not accommodate a particular size or type of protective mask, the test head must be removed from the mask tester and replaced with a different form of test head. Thus, it is often the case that multiple test heads are required with a given mask tester to test different protective masks.